Zenith TV to be featured in play

[Carmine]

As I have mentioned earlier, one of my vintage sets was requested by a friend for his wife's production of Neil Simon's Chapter Two.

They were looking for a vintage set such as would have been used in an early 70s upper-class NYC apartment. The set is basically a prop during the play, however it was suggested that it would be nice to play some 70s vintage clips on the set before the show started and during intermission to set the 70s "mood".

I had planned on using a solid-state TV, but the person who was to supply that set basically flaked out, so this was a last-minute replacement. It should be an interesting test, because this TV is an unrestored high-hour, smoke environment set. Mixed bag of tubes, so-so CRT, no cap replacements. I did a quick and dirty grey scale and convergence setup. Kept the CRT drives low and brightness limiter way down to ease stress in case somebody tries to use the user controls to drive it harder.

I know my friend will treat the set carefully, but I told him to go ahead and use it for the 1/2 hour a night and if a tube or cap craps out, "Oh well, back to prop status". This chassis is tired anyways, and I mostly keep it for the nice cabinet. Yet I have confidence it won't die... afterall, it's a handwired Zenith.

Here are some pictures I took while it was upstairs from the basement, enjoying its fame with its older and younger Zenith brothers. I get free show tickets as a side benefit, so I'll have a shot of it on stage too. Also get my name (with e-mail address) in the play program as the "Old TV supplier". Since the play is running in an old, rich suburb, you never know what I might get from this!

Crummy Youtube Mpeg: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-IutCiVJwY

[bgadow]

I bet it'll do just fine! I had a very similar set once, same cabinet. It had spent weeks in one winter sitting out front of a used furniture store when the owner gave it to me. I wasn't much at diagnosing things back then; I suspect it had a bad circuit breaker because sometimes it worked great and other times it was just the filaments. That was one of the first tube color sets I brought home; I can still smell it!

[bigolds98]

Man you have sets everywhere now. That is cool that your TV(s) are going to be famous.LOL.

Unless they had authentic props like an actual period-correct TV!
I wonder how many in the audience will notice such a worthwhile detail?
I think more would notice than one might think, even if only subconciously.